House Democrats are set to advance legislation Wednesday to shore up endangered multiemployer pension plans by giving them low-interest federal loans and bonds, a move critics are calling a bailout. The legislation comes as unions are pressuring the party to act before pensions start going bankrupt.

“About 10 million Americans participate in multiemployer plans and about 1.3 million of them are in plans that are quickly running out of money,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., said Wednesday at the start of the committee mark-up of the bill. “We are in the midst of a crisis, but for years we have failed to do anything to stop it.”